New special issue in "Proceedings of the Royal Society B" reframes the origins of domestication

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

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Excavations at the Vardhanze archaeological site in Uzbekistan, under the directorship of Silvia Pozzi and the Italian/Uzbek Expeditions. Among other research questions, Dr. Spengler and his team are trying to better understand how a massive capital city was fed and supplied on the edge of the Kyzyl Kum Desert in early historical periods.

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Credit: Robert N. Spengler III

A new special issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B takes a bold step toward redefining one of the most debated concepts in biology and the social sciences: domestication. Titled Shifting Paradigms Towards Integrated Perspectives in Domestication Studies, the issue gathers leading voices in archaeology, evolutionary biology, and plant science to question conventional narratives and introduce new case studies that push the field forward.

The volume was co-edited by Dr. Robert Spengler, leader of the Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and builds on a landmark conference, Domesticating Earth, held at Ringberg Castle in Bavaria in 2024. Co-editors Dr. Rosalind Gillis, Dr. Marta Dal Corso, and Dr. Hugo Oliveira also attended the conference, which catalyzed the collaborative effort behind this publication.

Rather than focusing solely on well-known domesticates like wheat, sheep, or rice, the issue explores lesser-studied plants and animals across a broad geographical and temporal spectrum. In doing so, it reveals how domestication may have occurred in more diverse and context-dependent ways than previously recognized.

One study in the new issue, led by Dr. Rita Dal Martello of Ca'Foscari University in Venice, presents the largest compiled database to date of cereal grain measurements—spanning from the 9th millennium BCE to the present. The article, “Contrasting diachronic regional trends in cereal grain evolution across Eurasia,” analyzes size changes in staple grains like wheat, barley, and Chinese millets, revealing complex, region-specific evolutionary trajectories shaped by both cultural practices and environmental constraints.

“Our findings highlight how similar evolutionary patterns—such as increases in grain size—emerged independently across Eurasia, raising new questions about parallel domestication processes,” say Dal Martello.

In another article, “Seeking consensus on the domestication concept,” Spengler and colleagues address a fundamental issue: the lack of a shared definition for domestication itself. Drawing on published definitions, the authors dissect the concept and expose how current definitions may bias scientific interpretations. Critically, they argue that domestication likely occurred without deliberate human intent, suggesting the need for a new definition that accounts for unconscious and incremental evolutionary processes.

“Domestication is the foundation of modern civilization,” says Spengler. “Understanding how it really happened—across species, regions, and millennia—reshapes our sense of what it means to be human today.”

As humans continue to shape the evolution of species—whether through agriculture, urbanization, or climate change—the archaeological record offers essential insights into how long-term human-plant-animal relationships unfold. These lessons could inform more sustainable practices today and tomorrow.

Three views of a prehistoric barley grain from a recently excavated archaeological site in Mongolia; members of the Spengler lab are searching for the routes of spread of farming across Mongolia.

 

The Tien Shan wild apple the progenitor of the modern apple. Studying wild apples is helping researchers from the Max Planck Society better understand the domestication process

Credit

Robert N. Spengler III

Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rstb.2024.0188 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Seeking consensus on the domestication concept

Article Publication Date

15-May-2025\

 

Manitoba Museum and ROM palaeontologists discover 506-million-year-old predator

Royal Ontario Museum

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Life reconstruction of Mosura fentoni.

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Credit: Art by Danielle Dufault, © ROM

Palaeontologists at the Manitoba Museum and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have discovered a remarkable new 506-million-year-old predator from the Burgess Shale of Canada. The results are announced in a paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Mosura fentoni was about the size of your index finger and had three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth and a body with swimming flaps along its sides. These traits show it to be part of an extinct group known as the radiodonts, which also included the famous Anomalocaris canadensis, a meter-long predator that shared the waters with Mosura.

However, Mosura also possessed a feature not seen in any other radiodont: an abdomen-like body region made up of multiple segments at its back end.

"Mosura has 16 tightly packed segments lined with gills at the rear end of its body. This is a neat example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups, like horseshoe crabs, woodlice, and insects, which share a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body,” says Joe Moysiuk, Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Manitoba Museum, who led the study.

The reason for this intriguing adaptation remains uncertain, but the researchers postulate it may be related to particular habitat preference or behavioural characteristics of Mosura that required more efficient respiration.

With its broad swimming flaps near its midsection and narrow abdomen, Mosura was nicknamed the "sea-moth" by field collectors based on its vague appearance to a moth. This inspired its scientific name, which references the fictional Japanese kaiju also known as Mothra. Only distantly related to real moths – as well as spiders, crabs, and millipedes – Mosura belongs on a much deeper branch in the evolutionary tree of these animals, collectively known as arthropods.

“Radiodonts were the first group of arthropods to branch out in the evolutionary tree, so they provide key insight into ancestral traits for the entire group. The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives.” says study co-author Jean-Bernard Caron, Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at ROM.

Several fossils of Mosura additionally show details of internal anatomy, including elements of the nervous system, circulatory system, and digestive tract.

“Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy. We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods. The details are astounding,” Caron adds.

Instead of having arteries and veins like we do, Mosura had an “open” circulatory system, with its heart pumping blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae. These lacunae are preserved as reflective patches that fill the body and extend into the swimming flaps in the fossils.

“The well-preserved lacunae of the circulatory system in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we’ve seen before in other fossils. Their identity has been controversial,” adds Moysiuk, who is also a Research Associate at ROM. “It turns out that preservation of these structures is widespread, confirming the ancient origin of this type of circulatory system.”

Of the 61 fossils of Mosura, all except one were collected by ROM between 1975 and 2022, mostly from the Raymond Quarry in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Some also came from new areas around Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park, 40 km to the southeast, which have revealed spectacular new Burgess Shale fossils, including other radiodonts: Stanleycaris, Cambroraster and Titanokorys. One previously unpublished specimen of Mosura was also studied that had been collected by Charles Walcott, the discoverer of the Burgess Shale.

“Museum collections, old and new, are a bottomless treasure trove of information about the past. If you think you’ve seen it all before, you just need to open up a museum drawer,” Moysiuk says.

The Burgess Shale fossil sites are located within Yoho and Kootenay National Parks and are managed by Parks Canada. Parks Canada is proud to work with leading scientific researchers to expand knowledge and understanding of this key period of Earth’s history and to share these sites with the world through award-winning guided hikes. The Burgess Shale was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 due to its outstanding universal value and is now part of the larger Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.

Many radiodont fossils can be seen on display in ROM’s Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life, in Toronto, and a specimen of Mosura will be exhibited for the first time at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg later this year.

For 50 years, ROM has been at the forefront of Burgess Shale research, uncovering dozens of new fossil sites and species. Located in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks of British Columbia, the Burgess Shale fossils are exceptionally preserved and provide one of the best records of marine life during the Cambrian period anywhere. Home to the world’s largest Burgess Shale collection, ROM shares these extraordinary fossils through global research, an award-winning online resource, and its newest permanent gallery: the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life.

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Journal

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.242122 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Early evolvability in arthropod tagmosis exemplified by a new radiodont from the Burgess Shale

Article Publication Date

14-May-2025

 

World-famous Schöningen spears are 100,000 years younger than previously claimed, new research suggests

Scientists have analysed amino acids locked in snail shells to establish a new age for the world’s oldest complete wooden hunting weapons

University of York

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The Schöningen spears as presented at the exhibition of the “Paläon” Research Museum in Schöningen, Germany.

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Credit: Photo: MINKUSIMAGES. With kind permission of the copyright holder: Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (NLD)

The study used recent advances in a dating method known as “amino acid geochronology” – a technique refined by a research group led by Professor Kirsty Penkman at the University of York.

By analysing amino acids locked within snail shells buried within the sediment that preserved the spears, the research team was able, for the first time, to directly date material from the exact layer of earth in which the spears were found.

At the time of the discovery of the first spears in the mid-1990s, they were thought to be around 400,000 years-old, but that estimate was later revised to approximately 300,000 years. However, these age estimates were based on analysis of the underlying sediment layers.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the journal Science Advances, emphasise that this younger age estimate does not diminish the importance of the Schöningen discoveries. Instead, they say it further highlights the site's importance as a marker in the study of human evolution.

Co-author of the paper, Professor Kirsty Penkman, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of York, said: “This new dating evidence places the remarkable Schöningen spears within the Middle Palaeolithic period, the time of the Neanderthals.”

First author Dr. Jarod Hutson of the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany,  said “The Schöningen spears are so significant because, unlike older sites, they offer compelling evidence of sophisticated hunting strategies which would have required better cognitive abilities and the development of more complex communication, planning and social structures. The updated timeline for Schöningen now aligns it with a growing number of sites which together indicate a significant leap in early human hunting capabilities during this period.”

The site at Schöningen, Lower Saxony, was located at a lakeside where rapid sedimentation caused the exceptional preservation of organic materials, including the impressive arsenal of hunting weapons and other wooden implements, along with the butchered remains of hunted prey, which primarily consisted of horses.

Previous archaeological investigations analysing these horse remains, notably by the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution near Neuwied, a LEIZA department closely linked to the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, have revealed evidence of seasonal hunting of small groups of horses along the shores of the ancient lake, with over 50 individual animals documented.

These findings point towards well-organised hunting parties, where individuals undertook coordinated and specific roles to ensure successful kills of larger and more challenging prey. The redating of the Schöningen site implies a notable increase in the level and complexity of human cooperation by approximately 200,000 years ago.

Amino acid geochronology - the biochemical approach central to the redating of the site - takes advantage of the fact that amino acids, the building blocks of protein, come in two forms: left-handed and right-handed versions of the same molecule.

When a creature is alive, its proteins are made only of the "left-handed" version. But after it dies, some of these slowly change into the "right-handed" version. By measuring how much of each version is left in certain fossils, scientists can work out how long ago that creature lived. The researchers looked at the tiny "trapdoors" (called opercula) of small freshwater snails called Bithynia. These little doors are made of a mineral that traps the amino acids inside for millions of years, like a perfect time capsule. The scientists took samples of these snail trapdoors from the same layer of earth where the famous spears were found.

They compared the amounts of the two types of amino acids in the opercula from Schöningen with those from other opercula found across northern Europe. Another  research team in Madrid carried out further tests on horse teeth and tiny organisms called ostracods also found in the same sediment layer, and the results backed up the idea that the Schöningen site is younger than previously thought.

Co-author of the study, Ellie Nelson, a PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York added: “Groundbreaking refinements in amino acid geochronology are allowing us to date Palaeolithic archaeological sites with greater accuracy than ever before, reshaping our understanding of this pivotal era in human history. This innovative method allows us to measure time signals trapped within the crystals of fossilised shell and tooth enamel in any part of the world across a range of archaeological sites. The enhanced accuracy holds immense potential for unlocking the long-held secrets of the Palaeolithic.”

excavating one of the sediment blocks from the Schöningen “Spear Horizon” in which the opercula were found. 

Credit

Photo: Jarod M. Hutson. Courtesy: Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie.

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

Revised age for Schöningen hunting spears indicates intensification of Neanderthal cooperative behavior around 200,000 years ago is published in the journal Science Advances. 

The study was carried out by researchers from the University of York (UK), Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie (Germany), National Museum of Natural History (Washington D.C), Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research (Germany), University of Bremen (Germany), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany), Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria (Spain), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain), Lund University (Sweden), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany), University of the Basque Country (Spain) and Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). The amino acid dating at York was thanks to funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 865222 - EQuaTe).  

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adv0752 

Article Title

Revised age for Schöningen hunting spears indicates intensification of Neanderthal cooperative behavior around 200,000 years ago

Article Publication Date

9-May-2025

Alaska: Ancient cave sediments provide new climate clues

Discovery of 20,000-year-old cave sediments on Prince of Wales Island offers rare land-based evidence of ancient meltwater events

University of Innsbruck

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Paul Wilcox explores caves in a temperate rainforest area on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska for their paleoclimatic significance.

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Credit: J. Honkonen

Paul Wilcox, a geologist at the University of Innsbruck, has discovered the first land-based evidence of meltwater pulses from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the last ice age about 20,000 years ago. The age of the cave sediments was constrained via optical dating techniques, which is crucial to help piece together the sequence of climate events leading to a warming planet. The results were published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Around 20,000 years ago, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet in western North America reached its maximum extent. This was followed by warming climate conditions, causing the ice-sheet to melt. While it is generally accepted that increasing energy from a change in Earth’s position relative to the sun played an important role in shaping the climate at this time, the energy from this change was simply not strong enough to be singularly responsible for the ice-sheet to melt and retreat backwards. Additional climate forces were needed to kick-start ice-sheet retreat. However, these climate forces remain enigmatic. 

A team led by Paul Wilcox from the Quaternary Research Group at the Institute of Geology recently came one step closer to solving the mystery with the discovery of 20,000-year-old cave sediment on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. Michael Meyer, head of the laboratory for optically stimulated luminescence dating and also a member of the Quaternary Research Group, and Daniela Festi, a pollen researcher at GeoSphere Austria, were closely involved in analysing the cave sediment samples.

Examining past climate change is one of the most effective ways to understand the mechanisms and impacts of current human-induced climate change. Insights from geological and historical climate records help refine projections of future climate scenarios – critical for informing effective strategies for both mitigation and adaptation.

Surprising Discovery

Wilcox found the sediment evidence described in the study during field research in remote caves on Prince of Wales Island. ‘The cave sediments struck me as odd, as they contained no organic debris – which is highly unusual in a temperate rainforest setting,’ says Wilcox. In addition, the deposits showed anomalies in weathering: While cave sediments are usually weathered chemically, the rocks discovered by Wilcox appeared like they had been exposed to mechanical weathering processes.

‘I systematically took some samples to find out how old these sediments are,’ says Wilcox, describing the research process. Dating cave sediments is a difficult task, especially when there is no organic material available for the more commonly used radiocarbon dating (14C dating) method.

Cave as Time Capsules

An alternative method of numerically dating sediments is to directly analyse their intrinsic light signals that accumulate over time, using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. Such an OSL dating approach relies on the presence of sand-sized quartz grains in the sediment and determines the time of the last exposure of the sediment to light. ‘A limiting factor in OSL analysis is the availability of quartz. Although the site is situated in a limestone region, we found just enough quartz residues to make this dating approach viable,’ says Michael Meyer, who has been working intensively on this dating method in various geological contexts for more than ten years.

 ‘OSL dating is a powerful technique for constraining the recent geological past but has been rarely applied to cave sediments for various methodological reasons. As part of this research work, we succeeded for the first time in dating sediment samples from a cave using OSL,’ explains Meyer.

The sediments analysed are between 20,000 and 17,000 years old and were deposited in the cave towards the end of the last ice age. They have remained there untouched to this day: ‘In a way, the cave acted as a kind of time capsule that preserved the sediments for thousands of years,’ says Wilcox.

Preserved pollen was also found within the sediments: ‘This indirectly proves that there may have been ice-free biological refugia during maximum ice-sheet extent in which plants could survive even under extreme climatic conditions,’ explains Daniela Festi, who analysed the pollen data.

Melting Ice Masses

The quartz deposit in the middle of a limestone region proves that the sediments must have been transported over long distances to reach the cave. This is where it links with climate change during the last ice age: The cave sediments are evidence of meltwater events from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. This is extraordinarily rare, as the vast majority of sediment transported by ice-sheet meltwater ends up in the ocean. ‘This is the first evidence of land-based meltwater events from this ice-sheet,’ says Wilcox.

Cascade Effect in Climate Change

Current research into the mechanisms and drivers of anthropogenic climate change has identified the North Atlantic overturning circulation (AMOC) as a potential tipping point for the global climate system. Paleoclimatic data show that strong meltwater pulses into the North Atlantic – known as Heinrich events – occurred repeatedly during the last glacial cycle, significantly disrupting the region’s heat budget and triggering global climate consequences.

Recent evidence from cave sediments in Alaska reveals that meltwater events in the Northeast Pacific – referred to as Siku events – preceded those in the North Atlantic. ‘This supports the hypothesis that climate changes in the Northeast Pacific were a prerequisite for the shifts observed in the North Atlantic,’ explains Wilcox.

Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of these meltwater events, and their impact on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is critical. Future climate warming may lead to increased freshwater input into these basins – especially the North Atlantic – which could push oceanic overturning circulation systems beyond critical thresholds.

The next step is to investigate additional caves in the region with comparable sediment archives, in order to reconstruct ice-sheet dynamics during the last ice age more comprehensively. Such research will improve our understanding of freshwater input processes in the past and help anticipate their role in shaping ocean and climate systems under future warming scenarios.

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Journal

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-025-01694-4 

Article Title

Semi-continuous release of Cordilleran Ice Sheet meltwater between 20,000 and 17,000 years ago

Article Publication Date

13-May-2025

Devils Canopy Cave (Alaska)

University of Innsbruck





Paul Wilcox in the cave where the last glacial meltwater sediments can be found.




Paul Wilcox analyzing sediment in Devils Canopy Cave.


A glacier in Southeast Alaska that was once part of an extensive ice sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Credit
J. Honkonen




Michael Meyer in his OSL-Laboratory at the University of Innsbruck: The age of the cave sediments was determined using optical dating methods.

Credit
R. Shone